Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr

Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr (13 April 1764-17 March 1830) was one of the 26 Marshals of Napoleon.

Biography
Laurent de Gouvion was born in Toul, Meurthe-et-Moselle, in northeastern France. He took his mother's last name Saint-Cyr after her mother left his family at an early age. In 1782 he traveled to Rome to study painting, but when he returned home he did not become a painter. Ten years later he was made a Captain in a volunteer battalion of the French Army during the French Revolutionary Wars. By 1794 he was already a Major-General, and he fought under Jean Victor Marie Moreau until he was sent to replace Andre Massena as commander of the Army of Italy in 1798. He became friends with General Michel Ney and General Louis-Nicolas Davout, although Moreau disliked him for his self-righteousness and incorruptibility and falsely accused him of not supporting Ney and Davout.

In 1801, he was sent to Spain to command an army supposed to invade Portugal during the War of Oranges. When peace was signed shortly after the start of the war, he was made the ambassador to Spain. Saint-Cyr was unfriendly towards Napoleon, claiming that the Emperor disgraced him from refusing to deploy his troops on the front line, and Saint-Cyr remained stoic during an age of pragmatism and glory. He fought against Prussia in 1807 and led an army corps in Catalonia in 1808, but resigned his command and lived in disgrace until 1811.

However, Saint-Cyr was given a generalship during the Russian Campaign of 1812 and defeated Andreas Barclay de Tolly at the Battle of Polotsk. When Nicolas Oudinot was wounded, Saint-Cyr took over his command. Saint-Cyr's relation with Napoleon soon warmed, and after defending Dresden from an Allied army during the 1813 Battle of Dresden, Napoleon praised him, saying that he had the talents of Napoleon on the defensive and that there was no match for him among the 26 Marshals. He was made a Marshal after the victory, and became loyal to Napoleon.

Although Saint-Cyr was made Minister of War of the Kingdom of France after the Bourbon Restoration of 1814 in July 1815, he resigned in November and tried to defend Marshal Ney from the death sentence. In June 1817 he was made Marine Minister and resumed this post to 1819. During his tenure he made the French Army national rather than dynastic, safeguarded the rights of veterans, and revised military law and pensions. He died in 1830 in Hyeres.